About
Operations taught me to close the loop.
I’m Mekaella Magbanua, an Executive Assistant and Operations Specialist based in the Philippines. Five-plus years across executive support, operations, recruitment and HR coordination, including four years as a part-time remote EA for a New Zealand client.
How I got here
I learned the work before I systemised it.
My early roles ran on coordination, accuracy and follow-through: orientation sessions for overseas Filipino workers, about 1,200 customer enquiries a month, and ad content checked against strict rules every day. Recruitment made the cost of a missed handoff obvious: a candidate left waiting disappears, a manager without context loses time, and a process that lives in one person’s head eventually breaks.
Since 2022, alongside those full-time roles, I’ve also been a part-time remote EA for a New Zealand engineer leading a rail project: calendar, inbox, meeting prep, and chasing team leads until the work was done. I’m at my best when a business needs someone to keep every moving part visible and owned.
So that’s the work I do now. Keep the operation moving, make status visible, and improve the work that repeats.
Based: Philippines (UTC+8)
Hours: US (Eastern to Pacific), Australian (AEST/AEDT) or Gulf (GST) business hours
Primary markets: Australia, the United States and the UAE/Gulf
Start: Available immediately
Education: Studied Applied Psychology, University of the Philippines
Experience
Executive support, built on operations.
August 2022 – September 2026 · Part-time · Remote · Under NDA
Executive Assistant · New Zealand client
Part-time support for a New Zealand engineer leading a rail project in the Philippines, alongside my full-time roles. His calendar matched his top priorities, no urgent email was missed, and every meeting came with an agenda, background notes and a short summary.
Action items were followed up with each owner until done, and late deliverables were chased with team leads, so projects kept moving without him stepping in. Travel, expense records and software renewals were kept up to date too. The client stays unnamed under NDA.
January–September 2026 · Remote · Dubai-based sister companies
Recruitment Coordinator → Recruitment Operations Lead
I started with candidate coordination, interview scheduling, follow-ups and onboarding, supporting the CEO and the Sales Manager on hiring. From May 2026, the role widened into recruitment operations: up to 7 open roles at a time, about 50 candidates a month, weekly written reports to leadership, SOPs, Microsoft 365 automation and quality control.
All four case studies on this site came from that work. Company details are anonymised.
March 2021 – October 2025 · Philippines · On-site
Earlier roles
Content Moderator, TaskUs (Sep 2023 – Oct 2025). Top performer on a six-person team reviewing 50,000+ pieces of ad content a day for a leading global social media platform, under strict rules and NDA.
Customer Service Representative, TTEC (Aug 2022 – Aug 2023). About 1,200 customer enquiries a month on billing, account and technical issues, most solved on first contact.
Project Management Officer, Landbase Human Resources Co. (Mar 2021 – Jul 2022). Planned and ran 15+ orientation sessions for overseas Filipino workers, and tracked documents and deadlines so deployments stayed on schedule.
“She never made you feel like just another name on a spreadsheet. Even while managing recruitment, onboarding, and coordination across multiple teams, she remained approachable and respectful.”
Outside work
Eleven cats. Three dogs. All rescued.
I love spending time with kind, gentle creatures. They keep me grounded, and they’re a daily reminder to slow down.
Six of the fourteen.
Long term
Better opportunities for Filipino talent.
One day, I want to build a recruitment company that connects Filipino professionals with work around the world, valued for their skill, judgement and contribution, not only their cost.
That company doesn’t exist yet. Right now the job is simpler: be exceptionally useful to the teams I support, and keep learning what strong operations need.
Contact
Got a task that keeps coming back?
Bring it to a short call. I’ll tell you honestly whether it needs a quick fix, steady ownership or a proper build.
Prefer email? ella@mekaellamagbanua.com
I reply within one working day.